Friday, September 23, 2005

White GOP Lawmaker Wants to be Black (Not Santorum!)

The ultra rightwing Republican is white (very), and, as his behavior indicates, he seems to suffer from a brain deficit.

The East Tennessee Republican says that when he was told that he could not join the Black Caucus because he is white, he thought, “What? Whoa!”

It’s not clear what part of “Black” the lawmaker doesn’t understand.

Black Caucus Chairman, Rep. Johnny Shaw put it mildly when he said, “Stacey Campfield is a strange guy. That's the best I can say.”

It’s anybody’s guess what goes on in what passes for Campfield’s mind. Perhaps he will soon be asking to join the women’s caucus.

Campfield implies in several media accounts that he might pursue the membership again in the future.

The Republican’s claim that he has actually had a thought in his lifetime is both amusing and debatable. Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) is famous in some circles for his difficulties with the complexities of 3rd grade writing skills. When Campfield began blogging a few months back, conservative bloggers were so alarmed by his difficulties with the language that they assisted him in the fine art of spell checking.

Campfield is also famous for insulting his constituents.

Shortly after I started blogging, I wrote about Campfield’s distressingly unprofessional and illiterate correspondence with one of his constituents. This correspondence (and much more) has been extensively documented by college student and writer, Jon Fish. (See Jon's column on the subject here.)

Lest you think I exaggerate, below are a few examples of what passes for public service in the ‘mind’ of Stacey Campfield.

Email messages received by Jon Fish from Stacey Campfield (scroll down for links):

“Finally your opinion that your papers articles will hurt me I encourage you to Wright and motivate all the liberals to come after me I bet the vote totals change very little unfortunately students vote very little so if you can motivate them to vote, even if it is against me ,I encourage you, good luck.”

“. . if you want I could show to work Google it could save you a trip to Hodges and who knows you might even have time left over to get a life”

“Finally if you don't do drugs (you didn't say specifically) good for you neither do I, of course your brain is still mush Stacey”

These strange comments were Campfield’s response to the very articulate and polite letters sent by Fish to his State Representative. If you look at the correspondence between Fish and Campfield, you will see that the wrong man is in public service. The good people of East Tennessee deserve much better. Please join me in urging Jon Fish to challenge Campfield in the next election (scroll down for link).

According to the latest post on Rep. Campfield's blog, Fox News has contacted the Rep. about his desire to be Black: "Fox News has called me for a possible national feature interview on a story that ran today." If Campfield manages to make the national news, it won't be the first time Tennessee has been the laughingstock of the nation.